“At this moment – with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry and booming energy production – we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth.”

Actually, the AP notes, “By many measures, the economy is still recovering from the deep scars left by the Great Recession.” Unemployment has been steadily decreasing, but that’s driven primarily by a growth in low paying jobs and people leaving the labor market. There are still 1.7 million fewer workers with full-time jobs than in December 2007 when the recession began.

“I am sending this Congress a bold new plan to lower the cost of community college — to zero.”

The cost of community college isn’t being lowered to zero, the costs will simply be shifted elsewhere. The AP estimates it would cost “an estimated $60 billion over 10 years to the treasury.” Furthermore, the plan would require states to contribute a quarter of tuition, and not all students would qualify.

“Wages are finally starting to rise again. We know that more small-business owners plan to raise their employees’ pay than at any time since 2007.”

While business owners are indeed reporting that they “plan” to increase wages, “there is scant evidence that it is happening yet.”

And that’s just a very small part of the propaganda Obama put out there.

The State of the Union is an infomercial for low-information voters and an excuse for DC staffers to get blindingly drunk on a weeknight.

Pretty much. I’d only amend it to say that it is the party of the President who gets to present the infomercial (because few if any watch the other party’s rebuttal). But yeah, it’s a whole bunch of preening and lying laid out for those who will look no further. It’s also an exercise in bias confirmation for others.

Not sure how you stick with one topic a day when so much is going on, thus the appeal of commenting on lots of topics.

For instance, we find out that President Obama is the reason gas prices are down … if his SOTU is to be believed (yeah, it’s not). The fact that you happened to be hanging out in Washington DC and your title is “President of the United States” doesn’t mean you did anything to make that happen. As I pointed out earlier, his EPA will soon take care of that anyway.

There were a lot of other bits of fun and fantasy as well – free community college. Because, you know, its free. And not to worry, it’s those greedy rich folks that will pay for it. Mr. Obama wants $320 billion in new taxes. Capital gains tax – up. Death tax – up. Bank tax – up. And your 529 savings plan for your kids college? Yeah, no longer tax free.

That, dear friends, is how you get “free” college. Isn’t free stuff wonderful?

On to your retirement savings:

There would be a new cap in the amount one could accumulate in the aggregate in all IRA and 401(k) type accounts of $3.4 million. After that, you can’t save any more new dollars. The idea is that this is enough to secure a $210,000 annual distribution in retirement, which the government apparently deems “enough” for a retiree.

Because, of course, nanny knows best.

Finally, if you’re an employer:

In addition, all employers with more than 10 workers and who do not have a 401(k) type plan would be mandated to set up payroll deduction Traditional IRAs for their employees. Also, part-time workers would have to be covered under retirement plans if they have been working someplace long enough. These two things are a new kind of employer mandate from Obama.

Nice plan, no? No. As usual, that means precisely what the cartoon shows. Someone has to pay for all of this and it isn’t just going to be the employer.

Of course the concept that someone must actually “pay” for these things is always left out of the discussion. It’s “free” after all.

For a completely different subject, and in case you were wondering, yes, liberals in Hollywood (almost redundant, isn’t it) are still wringing their hands about the all white Oscars. Or at least doing a good imitation of it. My favorite theory? “Racial fatigue”.

The unknowable question is whether the same voters who supported “12 Years a Slave” had racial fatigue after supporting a black film last year.

Because, you know, there’s only so much support those white Hollywood liberals can dole out a year, or something. They gave their all last year. And you black folks just need to understand that! By the way, I believe “racial fatigue” does indeed play a part. People are tired of everything being made to be about race.

Speaking of culture, I found article to be very entertaining. Is there a civil war brewing on the “progressive” left (one dearly hopes so)? Why the question? Dilemmas such as this:

Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens were once known as the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism. For a long while, there was nothing more amusing to a young liberal than watching one of them debate against a creationist, or someone who objected to abortion or gay marriage on religious grounds. Dawkins, for a while, was the darling of the British media.

Dawkins, who recently discovered the joys of deliberately offending people on Twitter, has become an even greater figure of hate for progressives. This is probably due to his indiscriminate rationalism: he is just as willing to poke holes in theories of post-modern feminism as he is to attack religion. And when he does attack religion, he insists that Islam is probably the worst one out there. He has become persona non grata in progressive circles as a result.

2014 saw atheists and progressives embroiled in what looked like an all-out war. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a female genital mutilation survivor and one of the fiercest critics of Islam in the atheist movement, was disinvited from a planned speaking engagement at Brandeis University for her criticism of Islam, and was stripped of her honorary degree. Salon.comimmediately applauded the decision.

Students at UC Berkeley attempted to do the same to Bill Maher over his alleged islamophobia, but were stopped by the college administration. Sam Harris, another of the “four horsemen”, felt compelled to engage in a three-hour debate with progressive commentator Cenk Uygur after enduring a wave of hatchet-jobs from media progressives for his own comments on Islam.

Progressives may be overwhelmingly atheist, but there is only so much heresy they can stand. One of their core beliefs is that you do not “punch down”–that is, attack vulnerable or marginalised communities. Islam, despite being the dominant religion of dozens of nation-states, is said by progressives to fall into this category.

We’ve watched this sort of cognitive dissonance have its way with the left before. That’s because they aren’t really about principles as much as they are about biases. Oh, and limiting your freedom:

A YouGov poll taken just last fall found that equal amounts of Americans support and oppose “hate speech laws,” defined as laws that would “make it a crime for people to make comments that advocate genocide or hatred against an identifiable group based on such things as their race, gender, religion, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation.” Thirty-six percent said sure and 38 percent said no way. That’s disturbing enough on its own, but here’s something even more unsettling: Fully 51 percent of self-identified Democrats supported hate-speech laws.

First and foremost, I wanted to note that Word Press found something I wrote in my EPA post to be unpublishable. Try it with the first sentence, nothing. Take out the first sentence and it published. But that was discovered after a long session of trying to figure out if it was a computer problems, internet problem … etc. Here’s hoping this publishes.

Saw an article that said Hillary was looking for a slogan for her run for the presidency. I have a great one: “No more Clintons”. I’d apply the same slogan to the Bush campaign: “No more Bushes”. And Romney … etc. I’m becoming convinced we could leave the office vacant and probably do better. Especially when you consider those who want the job.

If you’re wondering what I thought of the John Kerry/James Taylor attempt at diplomacy last week, I thought is was pathetic and embarrassing. It was like the diplomatic equivalent of the ObamaCare website rollout.

I am thoroughly enjoying the left’s melt-down over the success of Clint Eastwood’s film “American Sniper”. Here’s a typical bit:

But Academy members seem to be paying attention to the criticism that Eastwood and star/producer Bradley Cooper shouldn’t be celebrating a man who wrote that killing hundreds of Iraqis was “fun.”

“He seems like he may be a sociopath,” one Academy member told TheWrap, adding he had not yet seen the film but had read the article, which is being passed around.

“He seems to be a sociopath, uh, but I haven’t seen the film yet …I did read an article however”.

And that made it into the critique of the film because it used a word that apparently found favor with the author – “sociopath”. Because this academy member knows all about sniper operations and how they’re used in warfare and somehow soundly concludes that the guy must be a sociopath. Gee, I wonder what he thinks about, oh, I don’t know, regular infantry guys in the Army and Marine Corps? Would it be too much of a stretch to think he might hold the same thoughts about them?

And the Yahoo who ate Detroit, Michael Moore, felt it necessary to “weigh” in:

Michael Moore, an Oscar voter and former Academy governor from the Documentary Branch, tweeted an anti-sniper comment on Sunday — “My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards … Snipers aren’t heroes … ” — but said it wasn’t about “American Sniper.”

Of course its not about “American Sniper” … just a gratuitous out-of-the-blue cowardly shot. What pisses Moore and the other off is you people out in flyover land are making “American Sniper” a box-office success.

And by the way, Michael … why are all the Oscar nominees white?

Yeah, that’s right … that’s the latest Hollywood scandal to rock Tinsel-town these days. Apparently it’s not the perfection of your craft that’s important but the mix of skin color. I wonder if anyone would have said anything if there were no whites nominated? My guess is, “no”.

Finally to Jane Fonda – sorry what you did wasn’t a “huge, huge mistake” anymore than what John Kerry did was a mistake. It was a carefully thought out and pursued strategy that has made you wildly unpopular and despised by a very respected community – veterans. So trying to rewrite history isn’t going to work:

“It hurts me and it will to my grave that I made a huge, huge mistake that made a lot of people think I was against the soldiers. … This famous person goes and does something that looks like I’m against the troops, which wasn’t true, but it looked that way, and I’m a convenient target. So I understand.”

No, you don’t understand … you apparently don’t understand at all. You were against the troops and made it known by your actions. But like much of the left, after a despicable and reprehensible act you think all you have to do is give some sort of apology and all is right with the world. Uh, no.

This week, instead of a car or motorcycle, I review a motorcycle jacket that is insanely good for its price. I mean, it’s an unbelievably good value. I suspect someone has sold his soul to Cthulhu to produce it at this price.

The oil shale boom has helped create a surplus of oil that has entered the market and driven prices down to under $2 a gallon. It is an economic boon to hard pressed families and businesses who use a lot of fuel. It is also a testament to how well markets work. And that’s why government is about to intrude in that market and jack the prices back up. This time under the guise of your out-of-control EPA

In spite of dramatically lower methane emissions from fracking, according to the EPA’s own data, the agency wants to impose draconian regulations on the oil and gas industry similar to those on coal.
The new rules that the White House announced on Wednesday aim to cut oil emissions of methane, a target of environmental groups, by 45% below 2012 levels, despite the fact that the emissions already show a sharp decline even as shale oil and gas production has skyrocketed.
This war-on-shale action mirrors the administration’s war on coal, with EPA rules impossible to meet economically and sometimes requiring technology that doesn’t even exist.

This is all based on the extremely shaky theory that the earth is warming due to greenhouse gasses produced by man, despite 18 years with no evidence of warming. It is also being done despite the fact that the EPA has no real reason, according to its own findings, to go after this industry:

“Reported methane emissions from (the) petroleum and natural gas systems sector have decreased by 12% since 2011, with the largest reductions coming from hydraulically fractured natural gas wells, which have decreased by 73% during that period,” according to the EPA itself.

Oil from shale has created jobs, lowered fuel prices and generally been the one bright spot in an otherwise lackluster economy. And it has been done without Federal help. Now the government is going to step in and impose onerous requirements on that will both slow production and raise production costs (then when prices go back up it will blame greedy oil companies).
You’d almost think the guy in the White House had once promised that energy prices would rise to very high levels under his administration.

The December Consumer Price Index fell -0.4%, mainly on declines in energy prices, with prices less food and energy unchanged. On a year-over-year basis, the CPI is up 0.7% overall, and 1.6% at the core.

The Fed reports that December industrial production fell by -0.1%, while capacity utilization in the nation’s factories fell from 80.1% to 79.7%.

The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index rose 4.6 points to 98.2, the highest level since January 2004.